Worth Fighting For: Love, Loss, and Moving Forward

by Lisa Niemi Swayze; Lisa Niemi

  We were always up to something crazy. It’s why we named our ranch in Los Angeles “Rancho Bizarro,” because you never knew what we might be cooking up. Early in our ownership of Rancho Bizarro, we threw a “Rock” party, which was merely a disguise for the true agenda: Those who showed up would literally be picking up rocks out of our horse arena. And then there were the swordfighting lessons that were used to hack the weeds out the back door. Every movie, every job, was reflected in what we added to the ranch; North and South brought the pool that Patrick reasoned we had to have before we added on to the house so our family-workers could cool off. Dirty Dancing bought the new master bedroom, bath, and closet, a solarium and dance studio, and the next movie converted our old root cellar into a music/recording studio for Patrick. And then there was adding a barn and arena . . . converting the old tack room into a guesthouse . . . new garage and carport . . . landscaping . . . If you read the autobiography, you will know that both Patrick and I are accomplished carpenters (from our lean days as dancers in New York). And actually, every stick of moulding in the house was done by my hand. And one day, I will putty in some of those nail holes.

  Anyway . . . The book!

  The book was released, and our press agent, Annett, and I began talking with our publisher about what I could do to promote it. I still could function great when called upon! I would just pay for it by crashing back down pretty hard later. The only concern I had about interviews was being able to control my emotions. Of course people were going to ask me about Patrick’s death. A little emotion was okay, but if an interviewer asked a question and I careened off that cliff into full-blown, ballooning sobs . . . that was not okay as far as I was concerned. I found out in one trial run, an onstage discussion about grief at the Women’s Conference in Long Beach, that I might skitter to the edge of the cliff, but I was able to throw a rope around myself and rein myself back in to safe enough ground.

  Going out and doing press on the book may have been asking a lot of myself, but I was goddamned if this book wasn’t going to do well. As much as people loved Patrick, I knew—if they didn’t know about the book, they couldn’t buy it. And I wanted everyone . . . everyone . . . to know what a fantastic life he had. So, I got myself together and in early November, I went on a press tour.

  I found that every time I had to leave a hotel, get on a plane to go somewhere, I felt like my world was being torn apart. I felt like I was digging my nails into whatever I could find as life and schedule dragged me to somewhere new. I wanted to say in the most nonsensical, childish way, “Nooo . . . pleeease don’t make me gooooooo!” It didn’t matter where I was going and where I was leaving from . . . I just didn’t want to move. But, in a kind of stunned way, I kept my thoughts to myself and went ahead and did it. I was talking to my friend Kay about this later. How crazy this feeling was that I didn’t want to leave anywhere. How painful . . . And you know what she said?

  “I know why you didn’t want to leave.” She nodded. “It’s because you’re moving on with your life without him.”

  . . . It was so true.

  After Patrick left, everything was a series of “firsts.” The first time I pulled onto the freeway. The first time I left town. The first time I walked into a restaurant, my yoga class . . . And they all hurt.

  —

  EVERYONE AROUND me tells me how incredible I’ve been. How well I’ve been handling this. And what a strong woman I am. And I smile and thank them, but inside I think they’re freakin’ nuts! Because inside, I do not feel strong and courageous. I feel like a puny, sniveling, whiney mess. This is not pretty. And I am at the opposite end of the spectrum from glamorous. Although I put on a pretty good show for moments at a time, the moment the need to perform for people is gone, I become a clump of wet, muddy, wilted grass.

  And months later, when the being stunned after his death and the deer-in-the-headlights look wear off . . . just when you think it can’t get any worse . . .

  It gets worse.

  —

  AFTER THE initial release, The Time of My Life is released internationally. And I’m called to do some more press. That’s okay . . . it helps me to have something to focus on. It helps me a lot.

  This interview is via satellite to a live, London morning show. Which means that I need to be ready to go on around eleven o’clock at night. So, I show up at an address in Culver City, where there are probably only two to three other people in the entire building since it’s so late. I have my hair and makeup done. And then I wait . . . and I wait in the darkened building for my cue to go one. It feels like when I was performing in the theater. The times when I’ve waited in the dark wings, listening for my moment to go on . . . the dazzling lights beyond, onstage . . . And I wait. And you know what? It strangely feels like my life . . .

  Maybe I’m waiting for him.

  Like his stuff, his toilet bag, brush, toothbrush, cologne is waiting at his bathroom sink. It looks so natural there. And it looks like he’ll show up any second to use it.

  As if nothing bad has, or ever has, happened.

  Maybe I’m peering into the darkness to find him.

  And then, just waiting. Patiently for a sign. For my cue.

  They say that I’ll always have him with me. Well, what I have right now is a piss poor version of that.

  They say at some point I’ll be able to go on with my life.

  And I have. Heck, I’m working, taking care of business and the ranch, etc. But that’s all just going through the motions. Is it really moving on? No, it’s just functioning in spite of myself. Something I’m pretty good at given the drama I’ve experienced in my life.

  But I have faith that what they say is true.

  That the loss of the one I love will become an asset in my life.

  That I will cherish what we had and I’ll be happy because of it.

  That I will move on.

  I wait patiently for all those things to come true.

  Then I can step out of this darkness.

  And into the light.

  That is my wish.

  I have been a romantic at heart. But I’m a realist . . . And I’ll wait to see if what they say is true. That I will heal, find a way to manage. And . . . maybe I won’t. That’s possible, too. But I have the wherewithal to wait and find out. As long as I have breath, I can keep putting one foot in front of the other. Because in my Finnish roots, I have my “Sisu.”

  So . . . I’ll wait.

  EPILOGUE

  Me, with my fabulous cowgirl cake.

  AS I WRITE this, it’s mid-May 2011, and it’s been one year, eight months, and one day since I lost my Buddy. I have a birthday coming up at the end of this month, and it’s funny how all the anniversaries have changed for me. There are always those milestones, those benchmarks that note and mark your passage through life: birthdays, wedding anniversaries, Christmas, New Year’s . . . I have added the date that my Buddy died. And that has strangely altered all the other dates and occasions—it’s the Christmas without him, the New Year starting, the birthday for myself that I really tried to ignore last year (unsuccessfully), our wedding anniversary, his birthday . . . The date of his death changed everything, because everything is now without him.

  It’s no small wonder that I’ve tried to ignore all those holidays and anniversaries. I busy myself and hope they’ll slide by like any other day. That’s hard to do. It’s like hiding from myself, pretending (with my finest acting ability) that God cannot see me. And of course wouldn’t you know it, it’s usually my tender friends who call my attention to the day. They call to check on me, to ask what I’m going to be doing that particular day; they invite me out. The ones who showed up with a surprise birthday cake complete with cowgirl figurine and chocolate frosting two weeks before my actual birthday. Two weeks before because I was planning to be out of town for my birthday! Agh! Foiled again. I burst into tears when this cake came out of hiding, with lit candles, and I had to walk away for a few minutes. I just didn’t want to h
ave my birthday without him. And my picture is taken with the amazing cowgirl cake before we cut it. And I’ve kept that picture propped up in my kitchen in New Mexico. And I think I’ve kept it there this past year, where I can see it every day, because, as curiously full of pain as I know I am in the photo, I look at it and I know I am still loved.

  No one told me how hard it was going to be living without my husband. It’s like learning to walk again—but with only one leg now. And beyond the grief, there seems to be a never-ending barrage of financial and organizational repercussions that have accompanied his death. My widow friends and I laugh about how being a widow (a term that I hate) is like being blood in the water. You know . . . the sharks can smell you for miles away, and they come after you. Why do they think I’m so weak? I mean, I’m in pain, deep pain. But don’t piss me off right now, or you’re gonna get a whole can of whoop-ass! But I am weak. My life roars in my ears and is spiraling out of control much of the time, but that doesn’t make me stupid. But the sharks and the challenges just keep coming. And I know that I’m probably not being persecuted personally, not in every case, although it sure looks like it to me. It’s just that every change, every attack, every complication is a lot to handle. It’s a lot to handle on my own.

  I see now how I always felt protected by Patrick. We had our hard times, and challenges that were towering, but I felt . . . safe. It’s crazy, ’cause Patrick wasn’t always the one protecting me, much of the time I was doing the protecting, and sometimes, even protecting myself from him. But after I lost him, I suddenly lost that feeling of being safe, and I didn’t understand why.

  “I know why,” Kay offered. “You felt safe because he loved you.”

  Ah . . .

  Yes. And his love was like an umbrella. It covered me, kept me from the storm, and safe in his arms. And now, as I mentioned earlier in this book, I’m out in the cold, looking for a life raft anywhere, and finding none.

  In addition to feeling like I’ve lost one of my limbs, that umbrella has snapped shut and I’ve been shoved out into the rain, and on top of that, I have to look at the world through different eyes now. Patrick and I saw the world together for over thirty-four years. And this world looks different without him. Even the things that haven’t changed at all look different. It’s like the planes of the earth have slid to an angle and shaken loose bits and pieces. And some of them are good, and some of them are bad, and all of it has changed.

  There have been a few friends who have been left along the way since Patrick’s death, mostly because I realized they were not really our, or my, friends. But mostly, there are the many fantastic friends who have stuck by me. I have to say that somehow, someway, Patrick and I chose our friends well. And their love and support has meant the world to me. And yes, there are a few who just don’t quite know what to do with me right now, and that can be uncomfortable for them. But they don’t go away, and they will wait out this storm.

  And then I have my new “widow” friends. I was lucky enough to meet two wonderful women after Patrick died. Both had lost their husbands to pancreatic cancer, one a year earlier than me, and the other six months behind me. And when we get together, the sh*t can fly! Meaning, we can short-cut all the small talk and get right down to it. There’s a lot of anger that accompanies the loss, also blame and other unpretty emotions that you cannot go around expressing to people who don’t understand what you’re going through. With each other, we can let it rip, and the other one will just keep responding in agreement, “I hear you, I hear you.” The three of us are very different people, with different lifestyles. But it’s amazing how similar our experiences are in dealing with our husbands’ deaths. Until the fall of last year, I felt protective toward my widow-friend who’s six months behind me in her loss. I didn’t want to tell her what lay ahead of her in this terrible journey, because I knew how much pain she was already in. To think that you would have more pain could be a reason to . . . just not go on. And that’s another thing we widows share with each other—that we tinker with the thought of suicide.

  I stopped being so careful with my friend last fall. I believe it was right around the time that I actually had a good day. (Up to that point, I had seriously thought that I would not survive.) And I told her, “It can happen!” And, slowly, it has. I can have a few days strung together when I actually feel pretty good. And sometimes, feeling good feels like euphoria. I can only think that this is because my body has been wracked with pain for so long that, when it gets a chance at relief, it interprets it as nirvana!

  But if I can have one good day, I can have another, and another.

  And I have.

  It’s just taking a long time.

  —

  I HAD the hardest time starting to write this Epilogue. Because part of me thinks, “I should be over this by now.” It’s been one year, eight months, and one day since I lost my Buddy. “I should be doing better by now.” It’s almost like an embarrassment. In addition to feeling like a broken girl, I feel like a broken record. It’s only just recently that I started talking to a grief counselor. I got sick of hearing myself say the same stuff in my head and to the friends I share with. And depression seems to have become a permanent fixture in my life. Like it’s stuck inside me and won’t unclog. I’ll have some wonderful days, and then I’ll crash and it feels like nothing has changed at all. I still miss him as terribly as I ever did.

  I was just sitting at Sunday breakfast with my friend Lynne. It’s one of her and my favorite places and it was a beautiful, cool morning as we sat at the café table out on the sidewalk talking about our out-of-control lives (she’s having a challenging time herself right now). We were sharing about how much we are overburdened, stressed to the max, and are having to do the work of what seems like a small army when it’s only just one person—us. And I found myself desperately searching for some kind of answer (because I am desperately sick of feeling this way), looking for some way out of the feeling that I might buckle under this weight, and I broke in, “You know, maybe . . . maybe all this stress isn’t just about . . .”

  And I stopped suddenly, and retreated.

  “What? What? You can’t just stop there!” she exclaimed.

  I gathered myself because, in the midst of our girlfriend camaraderie as we complained on this beautiful day, my heart had suddenly slipped through the cracks. And the pain was fresh again. And this hurt feels like falling. Like falling through air with nothing to hold on to.

  And I bore down and did my best to force the tears back down and step back to reality.

  “Okay. I got a little choked up,” I said, getting it under control, “I was just going to say that maybe we wouldn’t be so overwhelmed, that it wouldn’t be so hard to take if we weren’t hurting. Maybe it’s really about, you know . . . the hurt.”

  Lynne pursed her lips. It was not somewhere she wanted to go at that moment.

  Me neither.

  I was told by my widow friend with the one-year seniority that it’s not so much that the pain gets better as that it gets more “manageable.” And so far, that’s true for me. But I describe it a little differently. It’s like what I said about losing a limb, the “losing a leg” scenario—suddenly, a world I have always shared with someone, I’m left to carry on my own. I feel the weight of this burden. It’s just me, little painfully compromised me, who’s carrying the weight that two people carried before. But when I carry that weight every day, I get stronger, and I find little tricks to better bear it. So, you’re missing a limb? Get twice as strong. And you don’t want to, you have no motivation . . . you’re not even sure you want to live. But every day that you get out of bed, it’s going to make you stronger. Whether you like it or not.

  My out-of-control life?

  Change is hard. And this kind of loss forces you to change. It’s enforced change. And loss doesn’t lie still after you lose your loved one. It tumbles and tumbles, and becomes a series—loss, after loss, after loss. I’m keeping the faith that any goo
d groundwork I lay now will pay off later. It’s got to get easier than this! And I am working hard. Very hard, in every way I can.

  In the meantime, I’m strong enough this year to think about celebrating my birthday. I’ll just have some of my friends over, and we’ll laugh.

  May 15, 2011

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I LAUNCH INTO THESE acknowledgments knowing that, like every invitation list I’ve ever made for a big party, I’m going to forget someone accidentally. I apologize in advance to them. There are also people who were mentioned in the book that I may not mention here, but there are some I will.

  There are so many wonderful and talented people who made such a difference in the last two years of my husband’s life and my own. Many of those people I’ve never even met, or spoken to. I send out my love and appreciation to all of them.

  Haapaniemi/Niemi Family

  Dr. Maria Scouros and Ed and the kids; Eric and Mary and Will; Paul and Jessica and Valerie; John, Alex, and Carol; and Mom.

  Swayze Family

  Donny, Patsy, Bambi, and Don; Sean and Jami and the kids.

  Stanford Hospital and Cancer Center

  Drs. George Fisher, Jeff Norton, Elwyn Cabebe, Jacques Van Dam, Albert Koong. The great people in patient relations: Judy Kinsberg, Michael Granneman, Julia Vitenberg, Pam Huggins. Ex-CEO Martha Marsh, along with the experienced and wonderful gals in the trenches during chemotherapy, nurses, Cathy Krum, and Mary Salom.